Steven Walling wrote:
It's really great to see Wikipedia highlighted as a source for news and current events. It's rare that people fully recognize the degree to which the "encyclopedia" is actually very good at trending news information. That said, the report paints a rosy picture that, strategically speaking, may not be cause for celebration.
Does the Knight Foundation disclose somewhere in this report that it's a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation?
Comparing Wikipedia to sites like BuzzFeed and CNN seems to be a pretty classic case of comparing apples to oranges.
Neglecting to show people the value of the apps will help grow mobile web traffic in the short term, but in the long run may leave us entirely dependent on search (i.e. Google) or simply not growing readers, despite millions of people still coming online via mobile.
Can you elaborate on the value of the apps? HTTP is a free and open standard with very wide support. iOS is closed and proprietary. Maybe you can explain how investing resources into the latter aligns with Wikimedia's values?
Personally, I say hasten the day that we abolish the horrible "m." from our URLs and MobileFrontend from our servers.
MZMcBride